This invention relates to a machine intended for automatically positioning and continuously feeding containers, for example bottles or other hollow articles made from synthetic material, which may be of very different sizes and shapes. Taking into account that the speed of filling machines has increased with the passage of time it is therefore necessary to provide a positioning machine which has a sufficiently high rate of delivery of plastic bottles which are properly oriented and aligned to allow a high production filling machines or similar equipment to operate at its optimum capacity.
Known machines of the type to which the present invention relates include in general:
a) a hopper of any shape or dimension provided with an opening to receive bulk containers that fall onto a bottom plane whose edges are at a distance from the side wall of the hopper providing a peripheral space allowing the passage of the containers; PA1 b) a structure provided with displacement means in an enclosed circuit, located below the bottom plane, including, fully or in part: PA1 c) a plane or shelf, which may be adjustable in height, located below the recesses and over the chutes, designed to support the containers when they are conveyed by the holding elements defining the recesses for receiving and retaining them in a lying position, the plane or shelf being provided with an opening in an unloading area through which the containers fall when moved into position thereover by the container holding elements. PA1 a) Aidlin machine (U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,659) which discloses the basic technical feature which facilitates carrying out the upright positioning of the containers, the machine comprising a hopper into which the containers or bottles which are to be sorted are randomly loaded, having an inclined axis, an inclined disc constituting the bottom of the hopper and adapted to rotate about the inclined axis, a plurality of openings at the periphery of the disc each adapted to receive and pass one container while retaining the neck which is supported on the disc for transporting the containers from a receiving zone to an unloading zone, associated with a fixed plate beneath and parallel to the rotatable disc providing a support for the container bodies during their rotation and having a release opening in an upper part of the plate aligned with the path of movement of the containers as the disc rotates, so that the containers fall, by gravity, one by one in an upright position into a fixed chute or guideway located below the opening; PA1 b) AU 499,038 (HOEHN) which discloses the basic technical feature which facilitates carrying out the function of aligning the containers, previously oriented in an upright position in the same machine, according to a principle similar to that disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,659, from a plurality of chutes into which the containers fall, in an upright position, the chutes being arranged under each of the openings which are made from annular and radial elements located on the periphery of a rotary disc, rotating at the same speed as the openings and associated with a fixed support and to a recovery conveyor. PA1 the introduction and housing in a lying position of the containers in the rotary collecting openings or recesses, distributed in two or more rows, close to the peripheral edge of the container bottom, is not solved with effectiveness, therefore many of the openings do not even receive containers, some containers remain transverse to the openings and it is necessary to have means applied to eliminate containers incorrectly positioned to avoid perturbations caused by jams; PA1 the inclination of the bottom plane causes an area of accumulation of containers at a lower sector of the receptacle, which makes difficult and ordered access of the containers to the rows of openings; PA1 the machine is hardly adaptable to different sizes of containers, and the access to a discharge chute of an internal row, to eliminate a jammed container is very complicated; PA1 the discharge chutes for receiving falling containers are complex, involving a significant volume and making the production cost of the machine and the servicing tasks more expensive.
a plurality of detachable container holding elements removably mounted at the periphery of the structure defining a series of recesses adapted to receive containers in a lying position and provided with retaining means for one part of the containers, namely their neck, in such a way as to release them in a predetermined position, usually with the neck upward; PA2 a plurality of discharge chutes provided under the recesses for receiving and transferring the containers, while correctly oriented, and aligning them on a fixed bottom towards an exit conveyor that feeds, for example, a bottling line;
Machines known to the applicant are the following grouped by the function they perform:
The bottom of the machines and/or the rotatable disc or plane having the openings, is, in general, inclined, though it can be constructed in the shape of a cone or frustum of a cone having a vertical axis, as this solution can be found in the state-of-the-art, and it appears disclosed, for example, in patent DE 277347 (Polte) and patent U.S. Pat. No. 1,823,995 (Streby), which refers to machines of the same type as described above, in which case the inclined plane of the rotary element will by virtue of its slope and at the periphery move the containers downwardly thus defining a guiding duct which promotes the passage of the containers toward the openings associated with the falling chutes. The bottom plane, according to the above background prior art, is provided with a rotation movement in the same or opposite sense to the openings for collecting and conveying the containers.
In order to increase the productivity of a machine of the above type, the patent AU 499,038 (HOEHN) proposes the possibility of employing two or more concentric rows of openings adapted to receive containers housed in a lying position, combined with a single or double row of discharge chutes receiving such containers during their fall, arranged in a drum-like annular arrangement.
The patent GB 1,558,379 (HOEHN) which relates to a machine similar to that mentioned in the patent AU 499,038 discloses another example of a machine having a double row of openings located at two levels on the periphery of the rotary disc forming the bottom of the machine, each in correspondence with a series of discharge chutes provided under said openings.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,607 (FOGG) likewise discloses a machine having these characteristics with two radially spaced concentric rows of coplanar openings on the periphery of a rotatable disc which communicate with two arrangements of concentric upright discharge chutes which are radially spaced. The containers fall into the discharge chutes and are supported by their bottoms on a second fixed plane, intermediate to the chutes which receive the dropped containers with a development in an arch under 360 degrees, forming thereon two concentric rows, and from said second intermediate plane they pass to a single row formed on a third parallel, fixed plane, at a lower level, to which they have access through discharge chutes alternatively upright and inclined located under the second mentioned intermediate plane provided with an interruption to facilitate the transfer.
The disclosed machines have the following main problems: